PWD guards escape death by mere 10ft

Satyaprakash Rai and Umesh Upadhyaya — guards with the PWD warehouse in Lajpat Nagar — are used to hearing the noise of traffic on the ring road as they sleep in open in the compound right beside the Ashram Flyover.

Satyaprakash Rai and Umesh Upadhyaya — guards with the PWD warehouse in Lajpat Nagar — are used to hearing the noise of traffic on the ring road as they sleep in open in the compound right beside the Ashram Flyover.

On Thursday morning, they had a miraculous escape when a speeding car flew off the flyover and landed in their compound. They both were sleeping just 10 feet away from the spot the car fell.

“A loud bang woke us up. A car fell into our compound, were we were sleeping. A young Sikh boy, bleeding profusely, was lying outside the car,” said Upadhyaya.

The duo immediately called up the police and within minutes a PCR van drove in and took the injured to a hospital. “He was alive after the incident. His right hand was badly injured and he had received several injuries on his head. We were so frightened to see the scene that we didn’t go closer to the car,” said Rai.

The Honda Civic car, driven by a minor flew off the Ashram flyover, and fell into the PWD compound at around 3am on Thursday morning. “We would have been crushed to death if the vehicle had fallen on us. Thankfully, the car fell 10 feet away from us. We had a miraculous escape,” Upadhyaya added.

The duo said that the airbags of the car were inflated when it crashed into the compound. “The car fell on the right side. The boy, who was alone in the car, somehow managed to come out of it,” Rai said.

The guards, who get a monthly salary of Rs4,500, now feel it is not worth sleeping in the open anymore. “This could happen again. Sleeping beside the flyover is not safe but we don’t have any other option,” added Upadhyaya.